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View 844 Thursday, October 02, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

It was an interesting experiment, trying to follow breaking news about Ebola in Dallas, and a salutary lesson confirming that I have been well advised not to attempt that. Breaking news takes a while to become stable, and is easily subject to misinterpretation – or even to outright errors.

CNN is now reporting that Thomas Eric Duncan did not answer truthfully to airline questions about whether he had been recently exposed to persons suffering from Ebola, or corpses of those who died from Ebola. He stated that he had not, but it has been known for a day or two that he definitely was exposed to Ebola patients, at least one of whom died shortly after being rejected from a Monrovia hospital because they had no more beds. Mr. Duncan was transporting the patient in a taxi at the time, and helped carry her back into her apartment after they left the hospital; and there she subsequently died. Shortly after that he travelled to America.

The woman identified yesterday as Mr. Duncan’s sister is now said to be his fiancé, and the mother of one of his children. It is assumed that one of the five children living in the apartment Mr. Duncan returned to after being released from the Dallas ER Thursday night as not having Ebola (although he had a temperature and intestinal discomfort along with other signs consistent with Ebola, and of course knew he had been exposed to Ebola) – it is assumed that one of those children is his. All five have now been, not quarantined, but ‘restricted’ .

U.S. Pursues Contacts of Ebola Patient in Texas

Officials Look for Symptoms in at Least a Dozen People Who May Have Come Into Contact With Liberian Man

Health authorities are monitoring for symptoms of Ebola in at least a dozen people who came into contact with a Liberian man before he was hospitalized in Dallas, moving to contain the deadly disease before it can spread further in the U.S.

Among those who had contact with the sick man, Thomas Eric Duncan, are five children, ranging from elementary to high-school age, as well as a small group of adults, state and local officials said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Mr. Duncan is believed to have traveled "every so often" to the U.S. from Liberia in years past to visit family members, and this was to be his longest visit yet, according to an acquaintance of the sick man. He arrived on this latest trip Sept. 20, traveling through Brussels from Monrovia, to visit a Liberian woman who lives in Dallas, according to a friend of the woman. He started feeling unwell four days after his arrival, and was hospitalized in an isolation unit with suspected Ebola on Sunday. (Further reading: Number being screened for Ebola in Texas grows to 80).

http://online.wsj.com/articles/us-monitors-contacts-of-ebola-patient-in-texas-1412188681

Mr. Duncan was apparently not required to have a visa to visit the United States, and, as noted above, while he was questioned about his exposure to Ebola, and had no visible symptoms at the time of boarding the flight to Brussels (thence to Dulles, and then to Dallas), no other precautions were taken. Apparently US Immigration Officers at Dulles did not ask him about recent exposure to Ebola prior to coming from the United States; it may be that they were unaware that his flight originated in Monrovia, not Brussels.

We have no other information about the five children in the apartment of the woman now described as Mr. Duncan’s fiancé, and so far it is not claimed that he is the father of more than one of them.

The Governor of Texas has proclaimed that Dallas is a civilized city and thus Ebola will not spread there. Given Mr. Duncan’s activities it is also clear that the city enjoys diverse life styles, some of which have only recently been included in the definition of civilized.

The clean up in Dallas does have some problems.

Delay in Dallas Ebola Cleanup as Workers Balk at Task

By KEVIN SACK and MARC SANTORAOCT. 2, 2014

DALLAS — More than a week after a Liberian man fell ill with Ebola and four days after he was placed in isolation at a hospital in Dallas, the apartment where he was staying with four other people had not been cleaned and the sheets and dirty towels he used while sick remained in the home, health officials acknowledged on Thursday afternoon.

Even as the authorities were reaching out to at least 80 people who may have had contact — either directly or indirectly — with the patient, Thomas E. Duncan, while he was contagious, they were scrambling to find medical workers to safely clean the apartment.

Continue reading the main story

The four family members who are living there are among a handful who have been directed by the authorities to remain in isolation, following what officials said was a failure to comply with an order to stay home. Texas health officials hand-delivered orders to residents of the apartment requiring them not to leave their home and not to allow any visitors inside until their roughly three-week incubation periods have passed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/dallas-ebola-case-thomas-duncan-contacts.html

White House Says No Ebola Travel Restrictions

"The White House said Wednesday it will not impose travel restrictions or introduce new airport screenings to prevent additional cases of Ebola from entering the United States.

"Spokesman Josh Earnest said that current anti-Ebola measures, which include screenings in West African airports and observation of passengers in the United States, will be sufficient to prevent the “wide spread” of the virus."

Full story:

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/219492-white-house-no-ebola-travel-restrictions

As for further non-"wide spread" non-epidemic (so far) spot outbreaks (so far) like the one in Dallas, we peasants should understand there are Higher Considerations involved, shut up, and die if need be, serene in the knowledge that our betters in DC will be protected even if we demonstrably won’t.

They’re up to a hundred post-symptomatic contacts to trace and rising now, many occurring AFTER the Dallas hospital mistakenly turned US Patient Zero away for two days, after he’d flown here from Liberia after massive known exposure but still asymptomatic.

My confidence in our "current anti-Ebola measures" is, to say the least, limited. Good enough to prevent an outright epidemic here? Probably so, let us pray. Good enough to prevent some significant number of deaths plus once the first few are reported huge economic disruption?

That’s looking like a very poor bet indeed.

Thirty days symptom-free outside the hot zone documented before they can come here is looking pretty reasonable around now. Except, for no explained reason, to our betters in the White House.

How do we tell the difference between incompetence and outright hostility to our national well-being? That’s rapidly becoming the wrong question, with the right one being, since we can’t tell the difference, what do we do about it?

Porkypine

CNN is claiming that the latest Ebola scare is a mixed blessing, with a positive upside.

The upside of Ebola in Dallas

By John D. Sutter, CNN

(CNN) — There’s one possible upside to the saddening news that an Ebola case has been discovered in Dallas: It might catalyze the world to help stop this crisis.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/opinion/sutter-ebola-donations/index.html

U.S. troops head to Africa for Ebola mission

Andrew Tilghman, Patricia Kime and Michelle Tan, Military Times

About 1,400 soldiers will head to Liberia this month to help support the fight against the Ebola virus that is spreading across West Africa, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.

The Army’s 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., will provide about 700 of those soldiers, while the other 700 will be mostly combat engineers culled from Army units across the force, Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

The soldiers will be among the total 3,000 U.S. troops whom the Pentagon plans to send into West Africa this fall.

About 300 of the troops from the 101st Airborne will come from the division headquarters, and they will serve as the Joint Force Command for the mission. They are expected to arrive by the end of October.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/01/military-goes-to-africa-ebola-mission/16526873/

Last night’s news reported that their first mission will be to figure out what it is they can do in Liberia, including studying the feasibility of constructing a 100 bed Ebola hospital; it was not clear who would actually man the hospital and do the treatments.

Doubtless someone will remind the White House of the Principle of the Objective. On the other hand I doubt many of those Airborne! soldiers expected to be sent without mission to equatorial Africa without any definite objective when they volunteered for military service. Undoubtedly there are people willing to so volunteer, but I would not think they are the same as those we need for our elite military striking forces. But it has been a long time since I was in the military, and perhaps I no longer understand what is the purpose of a professional soldier.

Porkypine asks an interesting question: what do you do when incompetence becomes indistinguishable from malicious intent? To professional soldiers the answer is clear. Shut up and soldier. Semper fi. It is not so clear to the people of the United States.

Toxic Assets and Recession

We are currently recurring, or trying to recover, from a recession brought about by a 10% default on mortgage payments. Nine hundred billion dollars were pumped into saving the economy.

The total student loan indebtedness is about a Trillion Dollars, and is expected to top $2 Trillion in 2020. The current default rate on payments is about 44% — that is only 56% of those owing the money are current in their payments.

Student debt is growing. The money goes to the schools, whose tuition rates continue to rise. In general, as long as the rise is met by increases in the amount of money pumped into the system by loans, they will continue to rise. This is very good for the unionized employees of the educational system.

The Trillions owed by students are carried on the US books as assets, and thus deducted from the national debt. The chance that all of them will be repaid is approximately zero.

Student-Loan Debt: A Federal Toxic Asset

Only about 56% of borrowers are making payments. At the peak of the mortgage crisis, 10% fell behind on payments.

By

Joel Best And

Eric Best

http://online.wsj.com/articles/joel-best-and-eric-best-student-loan-debta-federal-toxic-asset-1412204612

One note of good news: expect a sharp rise in American and Canadian real estate as wealthy Hong Kong citizens flee China.  The last big upset in China brought an enormous rise in real estate prices as wealthy Chinese fled.  There are more wealthy Chinese in Hong Kong than there were in China in those times.

Some principles of a Middle East Strategy…

Really liked this piece of yours – kudos. It’s kind of astonishing that our government can go running around like a lunatic, arming jihadists and then when they turn on us we drop bombs at random with no obvious plan or objective and seemingly no understanding of the history in that region… And the public so-called debate is, at best, somewhat removed from reality as we know it. Are there any adults left in our government? (Jerry Pournelle for Secretary of State!)

I would however like to point out another factor at work in that part of the world, one that you yourself have written powerfully on. I am referring to the ‘cycles’ of the Moties in your Mote in God’s Eye books. The middle east has a very high sustained fertility rate. Forget post-1970’s propaganda that population growth is always good: the reality is that (at least without an open frontier) societies with sustained high fertility rates are always wracked with poverty. When people are starving, when young men can’t earn a living and support a family, there cannot be anything stable, there is only chaos. You can’t govern chaos, you can’t manage it, you can only wipe it out or (my choice) wall it off. Anything else you try in a place like that will inevitably be worn down under the pressure of constant misery and corruption.

The low daily high record for Mount Rushmore was broken by 25 degrees Fahrenheit!

Subj: 1695 Low Max Records Broken or Tied

http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/09/27/noaa-1695-low-max-records-broken-or-tied-from-sept-11-to-sept-20-one-record-broken-by-25f/

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Thomas Jefferson

‘Neoconservatism’s founding fathers abandoned the radical left, but many of them (though not all) retained radical characteristics when looking abroad, such as a faith that longstanding constraints can be transcended by reason and action, a belief in the universality of rationally constructed rights and the ultimate desirability of democracy in all societies, and, when they’re in a good mood, a belief that “an end to evil” is possible.’

<http://nationalinterest.org/feature/realisms-home-the-right-11384?page=show>

———————————————————————–

Roland Dobbins

Subj: The Moral Imagination of Russell Kirk

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388944/moral-imagination-russell-kirk-m-d-aeschliman

>>It was a brave or foolhardy man who would so thoroughly expose and harshly criticize academic nominalism and neophilia — the tendency “to know more and more about less and less,” to prefer exceptions to rules, to eschew all general views for specialized knowledge only, and to reject the great heritage of “metaphysical realism,” including hallowed “self-evident truths,” for nominalist and neoterist detail. <<

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Did Marco Polo discover America?

<http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/did-marco-polo-discover-america-180952765/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

And of course there is Longfellow’s Skeleton in Armor. (included in the California Sixth Grade Reader, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LZ7PB7E/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=chaosmanor-20&camp=14573&creative=327641

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 844 Wednesday, October 01, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

The Ebola Scare continues. Stock Market rattled.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-30/first-ebola-case-is-diagnosed-in-the-u-s-cdc-reports.html <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-30/first-ebola-case-is-diagnosed-in-the-u-s-cdc-reports.html <–the hospital gave him drugs for his symptoms and sent him home 2 days before admitting him>

<–the hospital ER gave him drugs for his symptoms and sent him home 2 days before admitting him; 12-18 people are believed to have come in contact during this time

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-ebola-patient-exposed-school-age-children-governor/story?id=25885934

<–5 school-aged children may have been exposed to the patient during the 2 days between the first patient’s ER visits, attended school (but are not presenting symptoms)

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/01/thompson-dallas-county-ebola-patient-cases/16524303/

<–district schools identified: 2 elementary, 1 middle, 1 high; original patient is not a USA citizen

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/01/hospital-ebola-patient/16527143/

<–ER triage nurse asked for, was given, his travel history, recorded it; information failed to get to the rest of the ER team

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2775608/CDC-confirms-Dallas-patient-isolation-testing-returning-region-plagued-Ebola-HAS-deadly-virus.html

<–began presenting symptoms 2 days before his first ER visit; this means he was exposing people for 4 days before being admitted & quarantined; Dallas Co. Health Dept. denying a second patient is being monitored

Also if you do the arithmetic for death rates in Liberia from the graphic in that UK article, it is quite possible that the strain presenting in Liberia is the stronger strain: the known death rate in Liberia is just over 86%. The weaker strain has a 60% death rate, whereas the stronger strain has a 90% death rate. However, Sierra Leone and Nigeria are indicative of how proper care can change that, because they both have death rates between 30-40%.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-ebola-texas-20141001-story.html

<– original case upgraded to "serious (but stable);" where are his contacts?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/01/texas-ebola-patient/16525649/

<–second possible case

And this, folks, is how a pandemic can get started.

Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com <http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/>

Am I mistaken or were we not reassured by our President that the US is ready to deal with Ebola in the United States, and that our system is prepared? Apparently the market is not as certain as he was.

A Sharp Drop for the Markets Amid Ebola Concerns

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSOCT. 1, 2014

United States stocks sank Wednesday, and the Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 200 points on disappointing economic news and a slide in airlines stocks over Ebola fears.

Investors moved money into the traditional havens in times of uncertainty: bonds, gold and stocks that pay large dividends, such as utilities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html

But be of good cheer:

Wall St. bullish on Ebola cure

The first confirmed Ebola case in the U.S. is fanning fears around the country, but it’s also driving greed in some corners of the stock market.

Just look at the soaring stock price of drug companies scrambling to come up with a cure for the disease, which has killed more than 3,000 people in West Africa.

Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TKMR) surged 19% on Wednesday, leaving it up a whopping 180% since mid-July. Investors are betting the Vancouver-based company has a leg up on competitors because last month the FDA gave it a green light to provide its experimental TKM-Ebola drug to test subjects with "confirmed or suspected Ebola virus infections."

Richard Sacra, the American missionary infected with Ebola in Liberia, was given the drug last month before being released from a hospital in Nebraska.

Related: Investors are scared out of their wits

http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/01/investing/ebola-drug-stocks-pharmaceuticals-outbreak-tekmira/

Be of good cheer, we do not have domestic terrorism.

Oklahoma beheading suspect charged with murder, could face the death penalty

By Mark Berman

The man accused of beheading a co-worker in Oklahoma was charged with murder and assault Tuesday. Still, despite the horrific nature of the crime — which has drawn considerable attention and echoes recent beheadings in Syria — it appears that the attack was based on revenge for being suspended from work rather than any sort of religious motivation, a prosecutor said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/30/oklahoma-beheading-suspect-charged-with-murder-could-face-the-death-penalty/

Major Nidal Malik Hasan shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as he shot down unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, but this has been ruled mere workplace violence by the Obama Administration, thus saving the taxpayers the monies that would have to be paid to victims and their families if this had been caused in some way by the War on Terrorism, which is both declared and non-existent depending on who is to pay for it.

The war on terror justifies bombing ISIS held towns in Iraq and Syria, but it is not really war, and murder of Americans in America, even though meant to be an act of jihad, is only workplace violence. Then there is the Boston Marathon bombing:

US Treasury Has Not Determined Boston Marathon Bombings Were ‘Act of Terrorism’

By Eric Levenson

Correction: This story initially said that indicated the US Treasury had ruled that the Boston Marathon bombings were not an act of terrorism under the federal statute. That is incorrect. As the Treasury spokesperson says, the Treasury has not determined that there has been an “act of terrorism” under the statute. The story also incorrectly said the state had issued $1.9 million in bomb-related insurance claims. It was the state’s largest property and casualty insurers that issued the claims, not the state itself.

The Boston Marathon bombing attacks have not been certified as an “act of terrorism” by the US Treasury, an important point holding up some insurance payments.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, which created federally-backed insurance in cases of damage due to terrorism. Some Boston businesses were among those that bought the insurance.

Those purchases became relevant after the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013. Of the 160 companies located near the marathon’s finish line that submitted insurance claims, just 14 percent had purchased terrorism insurance, Insurance Journal reported.

But as of March 2014, many of those that held terrorism insurance had their claims denied. Why? The Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew has not certified the attacks as an act of terrorism for these insurance purposes, a requirement under the wording of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA).

“The Secretary has not determined that there has been an ‘act of terrorism’ under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act,” a Treasury spokesperson emailed on Thursday.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/09/11/treasury-boston-marathon-bombings-were-not-act-terrorism/riNULWk0GqflVS39ozviDN/story.html

That is the latest news I can find on the US ruling regarding terrorism in Boston. 

It is a strange war. But if we count the Boston Marathon bombings as acts of terrorism (and thus, at least by inference, an act of war since we are in a war on terrorism), then must we not also account our bombings of inhabited areas in ISIS areas, and our lethal drone attacks in various parts of the world, ‘acts of terrorism’? Or are they acts of war?

I refer you to previous essays on the Principle of the Objective. If you do not know what it is you are trying to accomplish, it often complicates understanding what you are doing.

American Foreign Policy

Dr Pournelle

RE: Ebola Arrives in Dallas. Policy and the Principle of the Objective – Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle <https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/ebola-arrives-in-dallas-policy-and-the-principle-of-the-objective/>

I wish for a consistent American foreign policy. I have wished for such since the Johnson administration. Excepting the Ford and Reagan administrations, I have not seen it.

In my experience, American foreign policy — especially so in the Obama administration — consists of rolling the dice to determine whom we bomb this week. I exaggerate, but not much.

To the extent of supporting American interests in the region, I can see arguments for arming the Kurds. I can see arguments for arming the Sunnis. In context, I see no defensible arguments for arming the Shiites. Nor do I see any reasonable arguments for continuing to support a unified state called Iraq.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I fail to see that bombing anybody in Syria will improve our standing in the Middle East. It sure as hell did not in Libya. Our interests in North Africa were better served by a stable Libyan gov’t with a dictator who knew the limits of his actions at the helm than with the screaming mobs that replaced him.

You brought up one point I want to look at: "ask the people of Detroit if they would prefer democracy or a government that delivered the mail, generated electricity, paved the roads, and organized a working Fire Department."

That’s it, isn’t it? That’s how we slide from Democracy to Empire. Democracy brings disorder to gov’t, and one day the People trade Freedom for Order.

As it was, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Per omnia saecula saecorurum.  A Republic, if you can keep it, Franklin said. 

1530 Wednesday, 1 October 2014

U.S. Patient Aided Pregnant Liberian, Then Took Ill

Liberian Officials Identify Ebola Victim in Texas as Thomas Eric Duncan

 

MONROVIA, Liberia — A man who flew to Dallas and was later found to have the Ebola virus was identified by senior Liberian government officials on Wednesday as Thomas Eric Duncan, a resident of Monrovia in his mid-40s.

Mr. Duncan, the first person to develop symptoms outside Africa during the current epidemic, had direct contact with a woman stricken by Ebola on Sept. 15, just four days before he left Liberia for the United States, the woman’s parents and Mr. Duncan’s neighbors said.

In a pattern often seen here in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, the family of the woman, Marthalene Williams, 19, took her by taxi to a hospital with Mr. Duncan’s help on Sept. 15 after failing to get an ambulance, said her parents, Emmanuel and Amie Williams. She was convulsing and seven months pregnant, they said.

Turned away from a hospital for lack of space in its Ebola treatment ward, the family said it took Ms. Williams back home in the evening, and that she died hours later, around 3 a.m.

Mr. Duncan, who was a family friend and also a tenant in a house owned by the Williams family, rode in the taxi in the front passenger seat while Ms. Williams, her father and her brother, Sonny Boy, shared the back seat, her parents said. Mr. Duncan then helped carry Ms. Williams, who was no longer able to walk, back to the family home that evening, neighbors said. [Mr. Duncan later helped carry Marthalene Williams into the house, where she died a few hours later.]

* * *

Health officials in Dallas said Wednesday that they believed Mr. Duncan came in contact with at least 12 to 18 people when he was experiencing symptoms. So far, none has been confirmed infected.

The five children, who possibly had contact with Mr. Duncan at a home over the weekend, attended four different schools, which authorities said would remain open. As a precaution, they said all the schools — including one high school, one middle school, and two elementary schools — would undergo a thorough cleaning.

“This case is serious,” Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said at a news conference. “This is all hands on deck.”

Health officials on Wednesday continued to track down other people who might have been exposed to Mr. Duncan after he began showing symptoms, on Sept. 24, and will monitor them every day for 21 days — the full incubation period of the disease. Most people develop symptoms within eight to 10 days. As a patient becomes sicker and the virus replicates in the body, the likelihood of the disease spreading grows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/us/after-ebola-case-in-dallas-health-officials-seek-those-who-had-contact-with-patient.html?action=click&contentCollection=Africa&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

 

All of those who took part in the taxi ride in Liberia have since died of Ebola, with the single exception of Mr. Duncan, who is reported to be in critical but stable condition. Mr. Duncan would have taken at least two airplane flights to reach Dallas.  It is said that he would not have been contagious at the time of the flights.

The Dallas hospital which treated Mr. Duncan but then released him with antibiotics has now found the information sheet in which he told the clerk that he was from Liberia; apparently that information was never given to the attending physicians.

Ebola patient says he flew on United, airline says

The Ebola patient being treated in Texas told authorities he flew part of his trip on United Airlines, a spokesperson for the airline said, citing information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The airline believes the patient flew from Brussels to Washington Dulles and then from Dulles to Dallas-Fort Worth on September 20, the spokesperson said.

"The director of the CDC has stated there is ‘zero risk of transmission’ on any flight on which the patient flew because he was not symptomatic until several days after his trip and could not have been contagious on the dates he traveled," the spokesperson said.

The Texas hospital treating the Ebola patient says there was no reason to admit him when he first came to the hospital last Thursday night.

"At that time, the patient presented with low-grade fever and abdominal pain. His condition did not warrant admission. He also was not exhibiting symptoms specific to Ebola," Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas said in a statement Wednesday. "The patient returned via ambulance on Sunday, September 28, at which time EMS had already identified potential need for isolation. The hospital followed all suggested CDC protocols at that time. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas’ staff is thoroughly trained in infection control procedures and protocols."

The patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, is a Liberian National who is 42 years old, according to a friend who knows the patient well. This is Duncan’s first trip to the United States, where he was visiting family and friends.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/01/health/ebola-us/index.html

It is interesting that Mr. Duncan decided to fly to the United States following his exposure to two people who were dying of Ebola, but before he developed symptoms.  One assumed that he went to the Dallas hospital the first time because he feared Ebola, but apparently was reassured by the ER that he didn’t have it.  He later developed it, and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and exposed the ambulance crew to his vomit while on the ride.

If the US escapes this without further infections we should declare a national day of thanksgiving.

Dallas equipped to handle epidemic?

Dr. Pournelle,

I’m watching PBS Newshour while reading your column. On screen, a Texas official has just stated that Dallas is equipped to stop the spread of Ebola?

Until recently, I’d lived in the Dallas area for most of the last 10 years. Apparently the official was not as familiar with West Nile virus as I have become. In my opinion, West Nile has been the 21st century’s own little secret epidemic in many of the Southern U.S. cities like Dallas with a) a high population of foreign arrivals and transients, and b) a lot of mosquitos. Without a long mandatory quarantine for recent arrivals, for which Dallas is certainly not equipped, I don’t understand what this person is talking about. I’m sure there is not any "screening" of recent arrivals for fever as there apparently is for passengers leaving Liberia (seemingly ineffective), and Mr. Duncan has identified himself as being ill — possibly an uncommon occurrence. It would probably not be possible for a U.S. official to trace all the international arrivals from the last two weeks, even just those arriving in Dallas.

Most surprising for me is that it has taken this long for a possible vector to come to light: my money would be on the side of the bet that this poor fellow is neither the first nor the last victim. While I’m sure that Dallas has only by chance been the first city "hit," I’m pretty much glad that I’m not living there any more.

It hasn’t been that long ago that countries did quarantine people and animals traveling internationally, or required pre-screening and certifications by physicians prior to travel. If we were really "equipped" to handle this disease, we’d have started these kind of measures last week — and we still would have missed Mr. Duncan.

-d

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/01/thompson-dallas-county-ebola-patient-cases/16524303/ <–director of Dallas Co. Health Dept. finally admits that, "Due to close contact with the diagnosed patient, a second person is under the close monitoring of health officials as a possible second patient…"

Stephanie Osborn

Perhaps it will end here.  This time.  Perhaps.  But we have a “second person” and we know about the crew of the ambulance; and all the people in the house of his sister.  And I simply do not believe that he was unaware of being exposed to Ebola when he went to the ER the first time and was released with antibiotics.  There is more to that story, but I have been unable to guess what it is.  When we send 3000 troops to Liberia, how many times will this story be repeated?

Who is the objective?

September 27, 2014 4:00 AM

The Khorosan Group Does Not Exist
It’s a fictitious name the Obama administration invented to deceive us.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

We’re being had. Again.

For six years, President Obama has endeavored to will the country into accepting two pillars of his alternative national-security reality. First, he claims to have dealt decisively with the terrorist threat, rendering it a disparate series of ragtag jayvees. Second, he asserts that the threat is unrelated to Islam, which is innately peaceful, moderate, and opposed to the wanton “violent extremists” who purport to act in its name.

Now, the president has been compelled to act against a jihad that has neither ended nor been “decimated.” The jihad, in fact, has inevitably intensified under his counterfactual worldview, which holds that empowering Islamic supremacists is the path to security and stability. Yet even as war intensifies in Iraq and Syria — even as jihadists continue advancing, continue killing and capturing hapless opposition forces on the ground despite Obama’s futile air raids — the president won’t let go of the charade.

Hence, Obama gives us the Khorosan Group.

The who?

There is a reason that no one had heard of such a group until a nanosecond ago, when the “Khorosan Group” suddenly went from anonymity to the “imminent threat” that became the rationale for an emergency air war there was supposedly no time to ask Congress to authorize.

You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan — the Iranian–​Afghan border region — had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.

The “Khorosan Group” is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network’s Syrian franchise, “Jabhat al-Nusra.” Its leader, Mushin al-Fadhli (believed to have been killed in this week’s U.S.-led air strikes), was an intimate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda who dispatched him to the jihad in Syria. Except that if you listen to administration officials long enough, you come away thinking that Zawahiri is not really al-Qaeda, either. Instead, he’s something the administration is at pains to call “core al-Qaeda.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388990/khorosan-group-does-not-exist-andrew-c-mccarthy

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 844 Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Ebola has arrived

Ebola Diagnosed In U.S. For The First Time: CDC

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/30/ebola-us-cdc_n_5909394.html

Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com <http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/>

 

• Patient Quarantined In Dallas For Possible Ebola Infection
• Ebola Diagnosed In U.S. For The First Time: CDC

The Huffington Post  | By Alana Horowitz

A patient was diagnosed with Ebola in the United States for the first time, CNBC reported, citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Until Tuesday, Ebola patients had only been treated in the U.S. after being diagnosed elsewhere.

The AP confirmed the news.
According to WFAA.com, the patient was being treated at a Dallas hospital.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas announced on Monday that one its patients was being tested for Ebola. The patient was kept in isolation and CDC officials headed to Dallas to meet with doctors there.

Texas health officials told KDFW that the chances of an outbreak in the Dallas area are very low.

UPDATE [6:08 p.m. ET]:

The CDC gave more details about the case in a Tuesday press conference.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the CDC, reported that the infected patient was traveling from Liberia and left on September 19th, arrived in the U.S. on September 20th, but had no symptoms of the disease during that timeframe. On September 24th, the patient developed symptoms, and then sought care on September 26th. On September 28th, the patient was admitted to the hospital in Dallas. Frieden stated that he had "no doubt that we’ll stop this in its tracks in the U.S."

This is a developing story…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/30/ebola-us-cdc_n_5909394.html

Given our travel restriction policies, it was inevitable; and meanwhile the President says we are sending 3,000 troops into the plague area. Despite all precautions, there is a reasonable likelihood that one or another of them will bring home a case of Ebola (and others will bring home sexually transmitted diseases, unless the Army has changed a lot since I was a soldier). It is unclear what military troops will do in the plague area, but President Obama has high confidence that something good will come of sending them.

Update 1200 hours Wednesday, October 1, 2014 :  It is now reported that Patient Zero (who has not yet been identified publicly) is in critical condition.  His sister days he developed symptoms and went to the Emergency Room, where he told them that he was from Liberia.  The ER physicians did not recognize his condition as Ebola, and he was given antibiotics and sent home.  (Precisely what the antibiotics were to treat is not known; his symptoms were those of flu.) His symptoms got worse and he returned to the Emergency Room, where he was diagnosed as having Ebola and was quarantined.  There has been no published information on the identity or location of the sister (who is resident in America) but one presumes she is in quarantine.

In later developments, CDC officials said that Ebola could be contracted by contact, but later defined ‘contact’ as ‘close proximity’, which was later defined as being within one meter of a person with developed Ebola symptoms.  It is said that patient zero’s Ebola had not yet developed sufficiently to be contagious when he arrived at the Dallas airport. Investigators are trying to discover who may have been within close proximity after his symptoms became sufficiently developed.

It is reported that the ambulance crew that transported him to the hospital is now quarantined. Nothing has been said about the ER personnel who treated him.

The Principle of the Objective

It is a military maxim that you do not commit troops without some idea of the objective: an achievable goal. There may be exceptions, as with Winston Churchill’s speech to Parliament:

You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/churchill.htm

But that is hardly the situation of America in the Middle East.

Arming the Kurds

Jerry,

I was surprised by your suggestion of using US forces yet again in an effort to create an autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq and arming them in return for a portion of the oil revenue.

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/

Are you really expecting Turkey to tolerate the existence of a Kurdish state on its border? There is considerable evidence that Turkey has with President Obama’s not so covert support been sponsoring ISIL as a proxy to not only overthrow Assad but subjugate the Kurds as well as the Shia of Iraq. You might recall that Turkey was so averse to the prospect of an independent Kurdish State or a Shia dominated Iraq that they steadfastly refused to allow a US Division to invade Iraq from the North through Turkey even when the international consensus was that Saddam did have WMD?

More importantly; why is it in the US interest to expend yet more blood and treasure to create such a Kurdish state? ISIL is allegedly pumping $6 million per day worth of oil or about $2 Billion per year. This is about as much oil as the US uses every day, perhaps every few days if you factor in the black market discount that ISIS is granting it’s illicit customers. If the US were still on a downward spiral of declining energy production, this might make sense. However; President G W Bush revived the US petroleum industry and President Obama’s determined efforts to FUBAR energy policy have been unsuccessful. With the US on track to become the world’s biggest oil producer and perhaps even a net exporter, the additional oil supply from an independent Kurdish state is simply is not worth the expenditure of the blood and treasure.

Of course the real issue is long term grand strategy. You have been one of the few visionary people who questioned the population bomb mantra and you are aware of the ongoing demographic implosion of Europe. I believe that you are also aware of the massive immigration of Muslims to Europe. Europe is still decades away from becoming majority Muslim, but the time when the majority of the youth in many European countries is Muslim is at hand. Europe has already ceased to be a reliable US ally and will become increasingly hostile n the future. Will it serve US interests to have to support such a client state in an overwhelmingly hostile region going into the future?

Given the demise of the Bush strategy, a retreat to neo-isolationism is the only sane policy. As Colonel Ralph Peters wrote, we must become willing to observe genocide with equanimity.

James Crawford=

The answer is complex, and you must not confuse military strategy with policy. I have always said that the best US policy toward the Middle East is to develop US resources, build energy independence – which we could have done for the money expended in the Gulf Wars – and minimize involvement in that area. Just as we should not become involved in the border disputes of Europe, we should not become entangled in the border disputes of the Middle East.

That has not been our policy. For good or ill, we have chosen to intervene in Middle Eastern affairs and involve ourselves in the religions disputes of Sunni, Shia, Druze, Alawite, and various other Muslim factions.

We have already chosen to intervene in the Syrian civil war. Our intervention in Libya does not seem to have been beneficial to the Libyan people – to all of them or indeed to any single group of them; one suspects that an honest plebiscite in Libya would return the verdict that they were better off with Khadafy – and our intervention in Syria may not have even that much success.

As to Turkey, while Turkey was an ally of Israel we had no real choices in the matter. But today’s Turkey is not the old government backed by the successors to Ataturk. Its military has been divided against itself and greatly weakened. Turkey has chosen a new course of action, and the notion that Turkey is an ally needs to be questioned.

If we are to examine US policy in the Middle East we have to look at realities, and one reality is that we are there; we have spilled much blood and destroyed much treasure, and only a small fraction of those were American blood and treasure.

Bombardment with inevitable civilian casualties has the inevitable effect of generating hatred for America among survivors, particularly if they do not see that we gained anything from doing it. Is it that we are simply addicted to breaking things and killing people?

We seem determined to bomb someone in the Middle East. We seem to believe we cannot simply walk away, seal our borders, and get on with building the City on the Hill as an example to all mankind. A North American self-sufficient state was the goal of the old Howard Scott Technocracy movement that grew out of the writings of Bellamy and Thorstein Veblen. It is very likely that it could be built. (Not necessarily a technocracy, although that is not so unlikely as it once seemed: ask the people of Detroit if they would prefer democracy or a government that delivered the mail, generated electricity, paved the roads, and organized a working Fire Department.)

If we are going to break things and kill people, we should be doing it to accomplish something. Establishing a Kurdish Iraq as part of a confederacy with the rest of Iraq is an achievable objective, and greatly preferable to a policy of cut and run after killing over a hundred thousand people.

Are there better strategies and policies? Given the present situation I don’t think of any.

Note, incidentally, that what I proposed is a great deal more than “arming the Kurds.” 

Bombing people in company with other Arab states is not an objective in and of itself.  Killing selected people with drones is not an objective.  Cut and run is not in my judgment a desirable objective at this stage or our involvement.  I would be very pleased to debate competing objectives.

Objectives 

Jerry,

I’ve really been enjoying your discussions on our current mishandling of things in the Middle East. Your objections to getting into that mess are well noted and long standing. They go all the way back to G.W. Bush and questioned what could we hope to achieve in going to war in Iraq.

Afghanistan was understandable since they were shielding our enemies but once that was no longer true, you rightly concluded it was time to come home with the admonishment that we could easily come back.

Of course, history chose a different path. We broke Afghanistan slightly and then hung around to ensure it was completely broken. We’ve lost lives there that should not have been lost; ours and theirs. Iraq was a complete fiasco. We broke it; broke it terribly, then sent in the horrid Bremer to ensure it would stay broken for decades. In both countries we did just about everything we could to ensure the local population not only hated us, they would continue to hate us for generations to come. Then President Obama pleads surprise that Iraq hated us enough to band together to destroy anything and everything we had tried to accomplish. The same will happen in Afghanistan once we leave and Barack will plead ignorance of why and how we underestimated the opposition yet again.

Through all of this you have been correct simply because you recognized one simple thing – we have no goal. Peace, democracy, even oil are nice concepts but they are not goals. Goals are measurable.

Topple the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, kill Osama bin Laden, capture or kill Saddam Hussein – these are measurable and once done can be demonstrated so that we know we are done and can bring our troops home.

In short, our goal should always be to accomplish something measurable and then come home. Part of any objective must be to identify when we are done.

To that end, I would contend that James Crawford is missing the point or perhaps has moved past it to the point where he is just ready to cut and leave as we did in Vietnam. You’ve also commented multiple times on how we had met the objectives in Vietnam, then gave it away. Mr.

Crawford, it appears, would want to do the same in the Middle East.

Isolationism is no longer an option. When 5 guys in shirt sleeves with box cutters can capture a plane and fly it into a building you can truly no longer be isolationist.

The overall objective, of course, is national security but that is an abstract and not measurable. In terms of the Middle East, what national security goals could our government implement that would be measurable and give some indication of when this will end? I would submit that the first should be the destruction of ISIS ability to finance itself. That is measurable since most of their funding is coming from oil. It does appear our military and perhaps even the president understand this and are sending our planes at the refineries to do just that. Another source would be financial support from governments. It is hoped our government is working to destroy that source of funding as well. Should both of these succeed in any large way, ISIS source of munitions would begin to dwindle. With air support taking out stockpiles of these munitions, the Kurds and Iraqi forces would have more success at defeating them.

The steps they take to do this should be left to them, however. The UN and the U.S. should not wag the finger of displeasure at the methods used however distasteful they are to our sensibilities, ethics, and media. It is the Kurds and Iraqis that must live with how they win their war and the steps they use to ensure ISIS or something like it does not rise again. The UN and our only other option is to send in ground troops to do the same job and then live with what we had to do to accomplish this part of our objective.

Braxton Cook

The goal in Viet Nam was to bring the ARVN up to the point that it could resist an armored invasion from the North with no US ground troops, but massive US air support including bombing the holy hell out of Hanoi and various North Viet Nam targets.  We achieved that goal as witness the 1973 invasion from the North with a full armored army: 150,000 came south and were resisted by ARVN with US air support.  The result was that fewer than 40,000 of the 150,000 invaders, and none of their armor, returned to North Viet Nam after a full defeat with fewer than 500 American casualties.  We won in Viet Nam but did not go on to victory, dictating peace terms in Hanoi.  By 1975 the Democrats were able to limit support of ARVN to 20 cartridges and two hand grenades per man, and withdraw American air support.  The North sent in another armored army with as much armor as the Wehrmacht had in the invasion of Russia.  ARVN had no American support on the ground or from the air, and Saigon became Ho Chi Minh city. See http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view349.html 

Our goal in Viet Nam was to allow the south to defend itself with American air support.  We achieved it, but then withdrew the air support.  I say this as a reminder that we should carefully choose our goals.

Understand that there may be a place for ISIS in this world.  It is not my business to determine that.  It is the business of the United States to pursue its interests.  We have interests in the Middle East, and we have allies there.  Building up a survivable Kurdish Iraq is a feasible and obtainable goal.  Bombing hell out of ISIS in Syria and Iraq with no actual purpose gives them more reason to hate us, but it is not certain what else it accomplishes.

r.e. Some principles of a Middle East Strategy 

Dear Jerry,

"Fortunately the Kurds claim and can hold a land pipeline path from the Iraqi oilfields to Turkey. Of course the Kurds may need a bit of help: and that is the rub. Holding land is primarily the business of those living on it, but holding it against foreign invaders armed and supplied by a major outside power"

Possibly. There are two major proposed pipeline projects from the Gulf area and Iran going to Turkey. One is promoted by a Shiite bloc including Iran, al Maliki’s former portion of Iraq and that part of Syria still ruled by Assad. The other pipeline project is favored by Sunni Arabs including the Saudis and others. This pipeline competition reflects the roughly 50-50 division in the Gulf area between Shiite and Sunni natural gas reserves.

NATO and the EU have a broad interest in Choice C, both projects. Meanwhile Vladimir Putin’s selection is Choice D, None Of The Above. Coincidentally enough the entity now called ISIS is presently operating on top of necessary segments of both routes. The question is whether this is by strategic design or the result of faulty strategic analysis by the ISIS leadership and its veiled backers.

Any proposed resolution of "ISIS" that favors only one of the pipelines will be inherently unstable. A settlement that includes both pipelines is a potential regional compromise acceptable to both blocs. This means resolving relations with Iran. This settlement will then require protection from meddling by evilly disposed external influences (insert Vladimir Putin & Sergei Lavrov pictures here).

The ISIS epic is another chapter in the emerging interconnected natural gas grid linking most of Africa, Europe and Asia. This has been steadily growing for 15 years. Seaborne Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exports/imports will function to set marginal spot prices and level out regional discrepancies to a more uniform global price such as we see with oil. This will incidentally reduce Gazprom’s extreme regional profit margins in Europe towards a lower global price.

Growing US LNG exports will also sharply raise presently low US domestic n-g prices toward the same global price. Dow Chemical among others have been opposing LNG exports for precisely this reason. This will be one "price of empire" for the hoi polloi outside of Manhattan and a few other select zip codes.

LNG Exports plus Obama’s War On Domestic Coal guarantees American serfdom will be worse off in the immediate future than before the shale gas bonanza.

Best Wishes,

Anon

The casualties of drone warfare

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Seen in the Daily Mail — a study has concluded that our drone strikes are killing 49 innocents for every terrorist killed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307/Americas-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-killing-49-people-known-terrorist-Pakistan.html

While that’s certainly an improvement over the mass bombings of World War II, I’m curious as to how this war can be prosecuted more effectively. I suspect that drone strikes *by themselves* aren’t terribly effective. If you blow up an AQ commander , his second in command will take over . The network will be degraded, but so long as they have the capacity to replace manpower, talent and expertise there will be little lasting effect.

I don’t, at this point, see any alternatives. We do not have an American Foreign Legion. What we have is air supremacy. So tit-for-tat targeting of terrorist cells from the air — something which allows us to say we’re "doing something" but is unlikely to permanently destroy the terror network — seems to be about all we’ve got. Would welcome alternatives.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Wednesday, 1 October, 2014  1200 hours:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-30/first-ebola-case-is-diagnosed-in-the-u-s-cdc-reports.html <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-30/first-ebola-case-is-diagnosed-in-the-u-s-cdc-reports.html <–the hospital gave him drugs for his symptoms and sent him home 2 days before admitting him> <–the hospital ER gave him drugs for his symptoms and sent him home 2 days before admitting him; 12-18 people are believed to have come in contact during this time

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-ebola-patient-exposed-school-age-children-governor/story?id=25885934 <–5 school-aged children may have been exposed to the patient during the 2 days between the first patient’s ER visits, attended school (but are not presenting symptoms)

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/01/thompson-dallas-county-ebola-patient-cases/16524303/ <–district schools identified: 2 elementary, 1 middle, 1 high; original patient is not a USA citizen

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/01/hospital-ebola-patient/16527143/ <–ER triage nurse asked for, was given, his travel history, recorded it; information failed to get to the rest of the ER team

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2775608/CDC-confirms-Dallas-patient-isolation-testing-returning-region-plagued-Ebola-HAS-deadly-virus.html <–began presenting symptoms 2 days before his first ER visit; this means he was exposing people for 4 days before being admitted & quarantined; Dallas Co. Health Dept. denying a second patient is being monitored

Also if you do the arithmetic for death rates in Liberia from the graphic in that UK article, it is quite possible that the strain presenting in Liberia is the stronger strain: the known death rate in Liberia is just over 86%. The weaker strain has a 60% death rate, whereas the stronger strain has a 90% death rate. However, Sierra Leone and Nigeria are indicative of how proper care can change that, because they both have death rates between 30-40%.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-ebola-texas-20141001-story.html <– original case upgraded to "serious (but stable);" where are his contacts?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/01/texas-ebola-patient/16525649/ <–second possible case

And this, folks, is how a pandemic can get started.

Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com <http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/>

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 844 Sunday, September 29, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

The President famously announced last month that he did not have a strategy with regard to the organization that calls itself The Islamic State, is called regionally in Arabic Daash or Daesh (pronounced dahhsh”), and called by many “The Caliphate”. It is not clear that he has one now.

I was preparing this essay when the President decided to act and launched a vigorous onslaught of air raids on ISIS held territory, mostly in Syria. What he plans next is not clear.

I will discuss the current actions, but first the basics.

For well over a thousand years various Islamic factions have tried to establish a unified state which will be the secular ruler over all Islamic faithful. It will be ruled by the Caliph, the true steward of Muhammad, and in theory a true Caliph would be both General and High Priest.

When Muhammed died, many expected that Ali, his son in law and the first adult male convert to Islam, would become his successor. Instead the community of the faithful chose his father in law, Abu Bakr, as steward. Abu, on his death bed, chose yet another of Muhammed’s companions as Caliph. The fourth Caliph was Ali, Muhammed’s son in law, and the fifth was Husan, grandson of the prophet. Husan was opposed, rebellion and civil war broke out, and gave up the Caliphate. There has not been a universally recognized Caliph since. Husan died in 670 AD.

Within the two great factions of Islam there are many divisions. Some, like the Aliwites of Syria, claim to be the only true Muslims. Others, in particular the Druze, call themselves Unitarians and do not claim to be Muslims, although many Muslims, both Sunni (who accept the various successors to Husan as legitimate Caliphs) and Shia (who wait impatiently for the return of the true Caliph from the House of Muhammed) regard the Druze as an heretical sect of Islam. The Israelis often hire them as security guards, and Druze citizens of Israel are considered reliable. In Lebanon Druze are an important faction and have worked in cooperative governments there.

The Kurds are mostly Sunni, although it is widely said by other Sunni that “Kurds are Mohammedans compared to Infidels.” Kurds are not Arabs, being more closely related to the non-Arab Persians. Persians are Shiites. Persia and Iraq were conquered before 700 AD, by Arabs loyal to the early Caliphates before the Sunni/Shiite division solidified.

Perhaps that’s enough. It would take many pages just to list the potential factions, and outline their relations with each other, and it would be pointless because that changes from time to time.

The Middle East has enjoyed the joys of diversity for over a thousand years, and the result is that there are no stable republics or democracies there.

Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing … but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

That should be enough to indicate that there never was a hope of establishing a liberal democracy in Iraq; the best we could have hoped for was a tolerant coalition government along the lines of the old Lebanon agreement, where the Marionites, Druze, Sunni, Shia, Orthodox Christians, and sometimes others shared power in a complex arrangement that allocated government offices – President, Prime Minister, Speaker of Parliament, Minister of the Interior – to the various factions. Oddly enough it worked, and at one time Beirut was known as the Pearl of the Orient. That was all long ago upset by invading factions.

Attempts were made to stabilize Lebanon, but none worked very well. Eventually they kidnapped an American from the Embassy and killed him. Lebanese also kidnapped four Soviet diplomats in an attempt to get the USSR to put pressure on another faction. The KGB responded by discovering through serious questioning just who had taken their people, kidnapping a dozen relatives of the kidnappers, sending the faction leader his brother’s testicles, and indicating that more body parts would be forthcoming if their people were not released. It is reported that no other Soviet citizens were ever kidnapped, but of course the USSR ended in the early 1990’s.

The United States conquered Iraq and pacified much of that loose collection of former provinces of the Turkish Empire, trained and equipped an Iraqi army, and withdrew. Many of the weapons are now wielded by the soldiers of the Caliphate, and many ISIS recruits are Iraqi Sunni who prefer the Caliphate to the anti-Sunni government of Iraq. Of course Iraq is different now according to the President of the United States, but there does not seem to be strong confidence in either the stability or the tolerance of the New Iraq. We have tried to create an Iraqi army capable of defending the “nation”. The result has been that about a third of the country – a large part of Sunni Iraq — is in the hands of the Caliphate and armed with weapons America provided for the Iraqis to defend themselves with. It is not likely that any new attempt to build an Iraqi national army will be more successful than the last.

It is difficult to discern the goals of the latest America campaign. The main use of the military is to break things and kill people, but breaking things and killing people does not usually of itself lead to desirable results. What results we want other than dead Caliphate citizens – men, women, and children – has not been announced.

Yet the Caliphate is the enemy of Iraq, and could easily play the role that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq played in the last century. The Caliphate represents a long standing faction of the Middle East. They have beheaded Americans, but they are hardly the only ones to have done so. The KGB convinced many Lebanese factions that kidnapping Russians entailed quite high risks, and the lesson seems to have been learned. Retaliation by bombing is likely to be both bloodier and less effective than the KGB operations in Lebanon were.

Purely destructive military operations – bombarding an enemy seaport or other city or encampment as an example – are intended to accomplish a certain result: stop doing what you are doing, and stop other people from doing it, or more of this will happen to you. Roosevelt’s cable in the Pericaris Affair – This government expects Pericaris alive or Raisuli dead – was intended to convey that sentiment, and the seven US warships in the harbor gave some credence to the matter. Pericaris was restored to his wife and children and lived out his life in London, so there was no port bombardment or seizure of customs houses; the objective was achieved without that.

It’s not so clear in the present case. What does the Caliphate have that we want, and is bombing seemingly random targets in Iraq and Syria likely to achieve it?

And yet they do have something we want, and which used to be ours: large parts of Iraq with oil wells. They manage about six million dollars a day in profits from the oil they have seized. Moreover, many of those oil fields are claimed by the Kurds, who are, at the moment, the most reliable allies we have in that region.

Which ought to suggest a strategy.

There are a number of military “principles” taught to officer cadets. They vary from nation to nation, but they’re pretty much all the same. The 1952 Bugle Notes – the Handbook for incoming cadets at West Point – lists nine Principles of War.

The Principles of War

1. The Principle of the Objective

2. The Principle of the Offensive

3. The Principle of Mass

4. The Principle of Economy of Forces

5. The Principle of Maneuver

6. The Principle of Surprise

7. The Principle of Security

8. The Principle of Simplicity

9. The Principle of Unity of Command

USMA Handbook (1952)

There are other contenders for the title of Principle of War. Nearly every war college has a set. In nearly every case they begin with The Principle of the Objective. If you don’t know what your objective is, you aren’t going to win – how can you?

There appears to be no objective in the current campaign against the Caliphate. “Destruction of the Enemy” might be a stated objective: the Roman destruction of Carthage, with the slaughter of all the adult males, sale of all the women and children into slavery, pulling down and burning all the buildings of the city, and sowing its fields with salt was a pretty decisive victory, and Carthage was certainly never a problem for Rome after that. However, we are committed to do this with air power and perhaps a few forward observers, spotters and shot callers, and some training officers. We aren’t committing enough airplanes and weapons to kill all the ISIS citizens, and even if we did it is not a politically acceptable goal.

But there is an achievable objective: retaking every inch of land claimed by our Kurdish allies and held by the Caliphate. An American regimental combat team with a wing of good tactical ground support aircraft, supported by the Fleet with its air arm, could achieve that objective, and do so rather quickly. Having taken that land, we can turn it over to the Kurds. Much of the population will be Kurdish, although some of that land was formerly Kurdish but taken by Saddam Hussein to be distributed to non-Kurds as part of his Arabization program. One presumes the Kurds will deal with that situation, returning the land to its former owners, and expelling the current occupants, but we would take no part in that.

As to the oil fields, we keep them. Part of their revenue goes to us to pay for this operation. Some goes to the Kurds. The rest is a matter of negotiation us and what’s left of Iraq (Sunni and Shia).

At that point we have a decision to make. Do we need a long term expeditionary force in that area of the world? There are other factions, such as the Druze, who might make long term allies.  If so, we have the means for financing it – those oil wells – and a good source of recruits to an American Legion. Terms of service: Sign up for four years. At the end of that term, if we want you, you can sign up for a second four year term; if you don’t care to, or we don’t want you, we hand you something like $20,000 and a ticket to anywhere you want to go, but only a temporary US visa if you want to go there. Sign up for 4 more years – that makes 8 – and you leave with a better bonus and permanent residence in the US, with a path to citizenship. At the end of 8, if you want to re-up, it will be for 12 years, and you’ll get a pension, US citizenship, and decent severance pay. Obviously I’m making up the details, but the point is that if we’re going to have long term overseas forces we need to build them, not disrupt the lives of Americans. The notion of citizenship and a bonus after honorable military service is hardly new.

Whether we build an American Expeditionary Force – an American Foreign Legion – determines to some extent what our objectives in the Middle East must be. We can’t take land we don’t hold, and we can’t keep sending citizens there. Our voluntary military is the most effective military force in the history of the world, but it depends on the quality of the soldiers; and that means more than just the bleeding edge front line troops. If we are to remain a Republic we must have citizen soldiers. If we are to hold overseas territories we must have long term occupational troops.

Bombing the Caliphate without objectives is not a strategy. Intending to restore Kurdish Iraq to the Kurds is a feasible objective, and having made the restoration we can simply come home. If we intend to remain a power in the Middle East we will need an army capable of living there.

More another time.

: Paper Bear

But still with potency…

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htworld/articles/20140929.aspx

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

The Red Army had been purged to near impotence in 1940. It was able to revive and turn the course of the war at Stalingrad.  Napoleon was certain that the Russian Army could not oppose his Grand Armee. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters

Dr. Pournelle,

Thanks for this morning’s post. You’ve often remarked on competency in empire, and illustrated other points of empire, but with this essay you’ve synthesized some of the parts of the principles of competency that I think had not been brought together before.

I know that you have probably said little that you think is new…Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, at the very least, were there before you…but you’ve certainly put proven practice in contemporary context.

It worries me greatly that there is no strategy for the Middle East. I remember then Senator Obama harangued General Patraeus about the failure of strategy in Iraq. I wonder on which side of history the CINC is now. Many members of the administration were quick to use the word quagmire up to the first election, but I haven’t heard it recently.

-d

Destroying the enemies of our enemies without gaining anything in return for that is generally a poor strategy: we did that with Saddam Hussein, as I said at the time.  Wars should be fought for an objective.  We should enter wars from reason, not from passion. Passion is useful in winning battles, but it should have no part in planning new wars.  Napoleon learned that.

The Caliphate is our enemy, but the Caliphate detests Iran and Shiite Iraq.  See

Israel: ISIL Is Not A Problem In This Neighborhood

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20140929.aspx

Some principles of a Middle East Strategy 

Dear Jerry,

It’s not so clear in the present case. What does the Caliphate have that we want, and is bombing seemingly random targets in Iraq and Syria likely to achieve it?

And yet they do have something we want, and which used to be ours: large parts of Iraq with oil wells. They manage about six million dollars a day in profits from the oil they have seized. Moreover, many of those oil fields are claimed by the Kurds, who are, at the moment, the most reliable allies we have in that region. Which ought to suggest a strategy.

The Caliphate also "has" a land passage from the stranded natural gas fields of the Arabian/Persian Gulf leading to the gas pipelines in Turkey that flow onward into southern Europe.

This list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves shows the immense potential natural gas competition for Putin’s Gazprom that is already proven to exist in the Middle East. Were any of several proposed pipelines to Turkey to be completed then Gazprom would lose its monopoly pricing power in southeastern and central Europe.

Keeping this entire region in a state of incipient war is therefore a clear strategic imperative for Vladimir Putin given his extreme dependence on high export prices for hydrocarbons. "Syria" can therefore be added to the list of "frozen conflicts" this ex-KGB thug turned international war criminal has been trying to manipulate. A similar motivation exists for Putin’s regular diplomatic interventions in Iranian affairs.

The converse is true for NATO, the EU and numerous Arabian/Persian Gulf states. The surest way to defeat Vladimir Putin and his cabal is to open up large new natural gas supply sources to Europe.

Stabilizing a land route for natural gas pipelines appears to require ground forces. The USA is the only candidate supplier of sufficient force. Meanwhile ISIS is proving to be a useful geopolitical magnet for US ground troops judging from many peoples’ statements. Exactly who has fomented ISIS and why is a fascinating question when considered from a cui bono viewpoint.

Best Wishes,

Anonymous

Dr Pournelle

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/some-principles-of-a-middle-east-strategy/

An American Foreign Legion. Interesting concept.

The question is where should we build our Sidi bel Abbes. Iraq is not a good site, but the AFL should take and hold the oil fields in southern Iraq to pay for the Legion.

As much as I like the idea, that way lies empire. And we Americans have no one I would want for emperor. Not even you.

Perhaps if Bill Buckley were alive . . . . but he would not take the job.

Wait a minute. Do you think Prince Harry would take the job?

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Fortunately the Kurds claim and can hold a land pipeline path from the Iraqi oilfields to Turkey.  Of course the Kurds may need a bit of help: and that is the rub.  Holding land is primarily the business of those living on it, but holding it against foreign invaders armed and supplied by a major outside power – South Viet Nam comes to mind – requires some continuous assistance by another major power.  Sending American troops into that situation is neither politically acceptable nor long sustainable. It requires forces which understand that their lifetime career is as auxiliary forces assisting American allies.  Giving such soldiers an incentive to take such a thankless job is difficult but we are in a position to do so; there are plenty of potential recruits.  Moreover, Kurdish (former) Iraq can provide an American equivalent of Sidi bel Abbes with this advantage: Kurdistan is not an American colony, nor will it ever be.  The purpose of the Legion is to assist the Kurdish army, not to oppress it.  And when that is no longer needed, I make no doubt there are plenty of places in this world where long term forces who are not and cannot be colonists will be useful.  This is not Empire unless you wish it to be.  The French Foreign Legion existed throughout the entire Third Republic and never was a threat to it; indeed came to France for the first time in World War I.

We do not need forces who govern without the consent of the governed; but we cannot send Americans everywhere that our interests are threatened when it is known they will not stay long.

Syria: A Better Future

Next Article → AIR WEAPONS: Turkey Sticks It To Israel Again

September 19, 2014: Thanks to continued Russian logistical (spare parts) and technical (maintenance technicians and experts) help the Syrian Air Force continues to send up warplanes and armed helicopters every day to hit rebel targets. Currently the air force is concentrating on ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). The Assad forces are not bothered by civilian casualties, so the ISIL custom of using local women and children as human shields does not work in Syria. In any event the Assads want to kill pro-rebel civilians both to lessen their resolve and persuade some of them to leave the country. The fighting that began in 2011 has now killed about 200,000 in Syria and forced over 20 percent of the population (most of them rebel supporters) from the country. The Assads have encouraged this flight with attacks on pro-rebel civilians and leaving open escape routes to the borders.

The United States has declared that it will seek to destroy ISIL without putting any troops on the ground in Iraq or Syria. The U.S. also admits that this effort will likely go on for years. In part that is because the U.S. insists that no American troops will be sent in for offensive combat. By the end of the year there will be at least 5,000 American military personnel in Iraq and even more contractors. That number is expected to grow in 2015 is needed.  Meanwhile there will be American troops in combat. These will primarily be special operations troops from the army (Special Forces, Rangers), marines, navy (SEALs) and air force (para-rescue). There will be some similar special operations troops from American allies. Britain and Australia are already in and others are expected to join, including some Moslem special operations units that worked with NATO in Afghanistan. Some of these special operations troops will end up in eastern Syria. While ISIL knows a lot about avoiding smart bombs and missiles they also know that if they are to control their new “Islamic State” (eastern Syria and western Iraq) they have to use bases and concentrate gunmen to deal with armed opposition. There is no tactic that will make ISIL immune to smart bombs under those conditions, not if they still want to control territory. The U.S. has managed to get nine other countries (Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Denmark and Australia) to join an effort to destroy ISIL in Iraq and Syria. The coalition will provide more advisors, weapons, ammo and air power than the U.S. itself is currently providing. The Americans will probably continue to be the major contributor.

 

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/syria/articles/20140919.aspx

And yet Assad is tolerant of Christians and Druze at the same time that he is friendly with Iran; while the United States is pounding on ISIL, which is an enemy of Assad and Iran, and is tolerant of no one. We will not be sending in American troops, and we have no objectives, and if we did we have nothing with which to hold them if they were acquired.  This is not a strategy.

Stalingrad

The Red Army had been purged to near impotence in 1940. It was able to revive and turn the course of the war at Stalingrad. Napoleon was certain that the Russian Army could not oppose his Grand Armee.

——————

Due to these factors

1) Hitler insisted on this Stalingrad campaign – foolish.

2) Western Allied Strategic Bombing, which, if not crippling the German War effort, added an element of uncertainty.

3) Hitler ugly racial theories caused occupied countries to conduct Guerrilla warfare.

4) The USSR outnumbered Axis by about 3 to one.

5) The Axis was unprepared for the Russian Winter.

And other things, many of which were Axis Mistakes which they did not have permission to correct.

B

Some of those factors may not have played out as you think, but the point was that despite Stalin’s inept handling of the Red Army (which became the Army of the Soviet Union or the army of the glorious homeland during that war) it was able to slow the Wehrmacht and eventually bring it to a halt, recover, and march westward to Berlin.  Underestimating Russian patriotism is a mistake. Underestimating Russian capability when faced with danger to the homeland has historically been a disastrous mistake. Do not count Russia out, and do not underestimate the ingenuity of Russians when ingenuity is needed.

This President’s Latest Failure

Normally, when the policy makers are crying "intelligence failure", it’s actually a policy failure. Intelligence failures happen, but not as often as policy makers would like the general public to believe.

Remember Condi? "I believe the title was, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." But, they called it an "intelligence failure" and created more bureaucracy. Well, now we have this:

<.>

President Barack Obama’s intelligence briefings have provided him with specific information since before he won re-election in 2012 about the growing threat of the terror group now known alternatively as ISIS and ISIL, an administration insider told MailOnline on Monday.

‘Unless someone very senior has been shredding the president’s daily briefings and telling him that the dog ate them, highly accurate predictions about ISIL have been showing up in the Oval Office since before the 2012 election,’ said a national security staffer in the Obama administration who is familiar with the content of intelligence briefings.

The staffer declined to share anything specific about the content of those briefings, citing his need to maintain a security clearance.

But ‘it’s true,’ he said, ‘that the [intelligence] community was sending pretty specific intel up to us.’

‘We were seeing specific threat assessments and many of them have panned out exactly as we were told they would.’

</>

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774122/Obama-accurate-intelligence-ISIS-BEFORE-2012-election-says-administration-insider.html

The article also alleges this president takes his daily briefings in writing so that nobody can testify on having warned him about anything in person.

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

It is being said in Washington that the President doesn’t sit through the briefings nor read the intelligence reports daily. Apparently they bore him.  I can understand that, and it may be that he makes that up by having a weekly briefing that summarizes; still, he must have got the notion that ISIS was the “junior varsity” from someone.  I can’t think that it came from the Company, so who has been telling him that?  And of  course the Benghazi fiasco was a classic failure of intelligence and will.

This President seems so determined to have all the troops out of the Middle East or at least out of Iraq and Afghanistan (although Afghanistan is not really Middle East, but leave that) that he can think of nothing else and listens to nothing that might contradict it.

Determining a policy regarding the Caliphate is very difficult.  They want to establish themselves as a nation. We have no real alternatives, except in Kurdish Iraq; but there we do have an alternative.  It will take a full regimental combat team – say a Division to be sure – and a wing of really good ground support aircraft, but that should be more than sufficient to establish the Kurds in control of all of their area of Iraq.  What we do about the central Sunni section of Iraq is another story.  Ideally, that would go to Jordan, which should have had that section in the first place.  There is the old “United Arab Kingdom” agreement that may actually prove useful, if we are bold enough to think that way.  Sunni Iraq is not going to lie down and be run over by Shiite Iraq. A long “civil war” between Sunni and Shiite regions is possible, but again not in anyone’s interest.   For the moment, one attainable objective would be establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.  It would be nominally Sunni (“Kurds are Muslims compared to infidels”) but not fanatically so.  It would be fairly wealthy; and judging by the record of the existing Kurdish areas since the fall of Saddam, fairly stable, not requiring any great commitment of American troops.  That is possible and attainable.

Other objectives would become possible once that was attained.

I doubt that our lack of coherent policy in Iraq is entirely or even mostly due to failure of our intelligence operations.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.